Premier Glockenspiel (part 1) (Job No: 1226)

Wednesday 12 November 2014

These Premier glockenspiels, like most percussion instruments, are let down by the frame they sit on. The problem is money. The manufacturers need to make a profit, because everyone wants a pay rise, whereas the musician wants the best deal possible. So how do you make a glockenspiel cheap? You screw your suppliers, and then throw it together as cheaply as possible using a minimum wage workforce. Only then can the upper managers get new BMW’s.

So when Paul the Porter starts to move the glock around, everything starts to self destruct.

As can be seen in the diagram above, the weight of the glockenspiel note bars, which are steel, tears the note rail off the base board.

So this is the first thing I look out for when overhauling a glock.

There are also pins that are missing, but I will get rid of them anyway.

In the photo above, daylight is visible under the note rail, so I need take it off and see if it can be repaired. Although the holes for the note pegs had been filled with matchsticks, and there were a lot more holes than needed. So the likelihood is that I will have to replace them with new note rails.

As can be seen above, the note rails are beyond repair, one split trying to remove it from the base.

In the above picture, I have zoomed in to show the collection of ironmongery holding the note rails to the base. A pathetic of upholstery and panel pins, with a few of those square twisted nails that were impossible to get out (the reason why I snapped a rail). Regardless of the type of nail used, the note rail still lifted – this is because nails are exactly the wrong thing to resist a torsional force. This really obvious; how does a claw hammer work, or pry bar, pincers, etc etc, in fact every tool for removing nails demonstrates where nails are least effective.

Furthermore, because the note rails were made of such low grade softwood, they split really easily, and because the wood is soft, any hole in them will just enlarge. The replacements I made were out of Oak.